


Come Again Another Day

by Rosage



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27902482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/pseuds/Rosage
Summary: Connecting with others makes Edelgard feel lost at sea, but on the birthday of Constance’s dead brother, she wants to try.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Constance von Nuvelle
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Come Again Another Day

Grey clouds blanket the monastery as Edelgard approaches the fishpond. The marketplace was as Hubert described it; slowly, their troops have taken up positions as merchants and apparent customers, not that the usual residents shop in such weather. An illustration of what may soon come to pass.

Finally alone, she allows herself to smile at a cat on top of a crate. Before she can pet it, she spots Constance sitting by the pond, holding a pole. Edelgard hesitates before stepping onto the dock. If it can’t hold her weight, she’ll plummet her into the water below. Though there’s nowhere for her to drift to, the idea of a rescue team having to extract her flailing body is enough to deter her.

 _It’s shallow_. _Don’t be a coward._

She holds her breath until she’s crossed it. She stops short of the edge, just behind Constance’s shoulder, as Hubert would for her. With a squeak, Constance looks up. 

“What brings you here this fine day, Your Highness?”

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t dare indulge in idle exploration during the day. But with the clouds darkening, she assumed everyone would be indoors.

“I was just passing by. I’ve never seen you out here,” Edelgard says.

Constance pats her hair, frizzy from the humidity. “Though I’m usually sequestered, I decided a break from my studies was in order. My dear brother used to love the stench of fish flopping across the docks.”

“Nuvelle’s late heir? I don’t believe I’ve heard you talk about him.”

“Yes, well, he didn’t often join me in my research. He was always with the wyvern Dagda gifted him, trying to teach it not to startle at magic. An innovation in its own right, I suppose, though he never quite succeeded.”

Edelgard folds her hands behind her back. Constance already rejected her apologies, and she despises condolences, those empty phrases she blocked out while her family dropped one by one.  
  
“Perhaps I can order the development of training techniques that utilize magic, so his work will not have been in vain,” she says. Constance swings her legs.

“A splendid idea! I might even do it myself, though for now, my darling Luna is the only mount I need.”

“I see.” Edelgard shifts her weight and glances around. The smooth pond and misty marketplace give her nothing of value to comment on. Constance’s legs go still as she sighs.

“He would have turned 23 today.”

On prominent nobles’ birthdays, House Hresvelg sends a gift. It says much about both houses’ circumstances that Edelgard had no idea.

“Is that why you’re out here?” she asks softly.

“It is indeed. Imagine, this would be his idea of a party! He always did love the water.”

It may be safe to share that her older brother liked to sail, too, and would often volunteer as a diplomat just for the journey of it. But a single drop could herald a downpour.

Constance saves her the need to respond. “On numerous occasions, he dragged me out to ramble about the virtues of patience for a leader and researcher.” Even as she says it, she reels in her empty hook and begins replacing the bait.

“I am sure both jobs require it.” Edelgard’s eldest sister lectured her on the subject enough. Ironically, Edelgard must cast aside patience for said sister—for her glazed expression, unable to take in her marked and pasty skin. For the white hair Edelgard glimpses from the corner of her eye as she looks down at Constance.

What would she think if she knew that ten times a year, Edelgard forces herself to sleep so that she may dream, so that their screams may drive her not to waste a moment? If she knew that Edelgard plans to tear out the foundations of this very monastery?

Perhaps Constance would bring her own power to bear on Edelgard then and there, unleash the lightning the sky has been threatening since that morning.

“…and that’s why magical bait is superior in every way,” Constance says. Stirred from her thoughts, Edelgard clasps her hands tighter. Thankfully, Constance continues. “I must admit, I find myself grateful he taught me a means of procuring food. I do so enjoy eating fish, if not catching it. To think, I used to think it a waste for a noble to learn such a thing.”

“You have survived on your own for this long. I would think that speaks to a breadth of strengths he would take pride in.”

After all, Constance hadn’t even had Hubert. If at least her brother had lived, she may have climbed much farther up her path.

“Given my circumstances, I hope he does not watch too closely. Today, however...” Constance gazes at the sky, softening in a different way than in the sun, a way that tugs at the husk in Edelgard’s chest. “Most would say this gloomy day fits the occasion, but I like to think he drew the curtains for me, so that I might spend my time with these smelly fish he so loved.”

For someone who plows ahead as fiercely as Edelgard to say such a thing… Perhaps, if only for an afternoon, Edelgard can step to the edge and sit beside another.

Without considering where it might lead, she asks, “Do you mind if I get a rod and join you?”

Her cheek dimpled, Constance beams, a sun that only rises in the face of a storm. “I would be delighted if you did.”


End file.
